Recommended stories

I’m tired of being timid.

18801880 views1111 comments77 favs

“Later,” I say to the frisky crickets, verbal cash of the eggnog spa, spot of gum…

Boats for Rent (Thinking About You)

11901190 views88 comments88 favs

We're killing off the elephants. We're killing off the tigers. We're killing off monarch butterflies. We're wrecking the coral reefs. Big sad gorillas don't feel at home in their own homes. And all instead of learning to live in some…

Prosaic Miscellany

11121112 views88 comments88 favs

Some days, you want all the red states to secede

After coming back from nowhere,

977977 views1212 comments66 favs

you notice some of what you need― a pressure of something you've intended, somewhere without a place,

the girl who was my suicide

11331133 views1313 comments88 favs

last night a girl came to me in the shape of my suicide.

Bad Boys

17141714 views1111 comments88 favs

You the macho man shuffling one woman out the back entrance to let another one in the front.

Life After Death

12971297 views1313 comments88 favs

If opposites attract, that might explain it, Doreen and I. Conjugally blissed through thick and thin. Forty some odd years. Since June of sixty five.

What a Monster I Would Have Become Had I Gone Through Life Unimpeded

12091209 views1313 comments77 favs

the title of this poem

A Lovely Ghost Sings a Haunting Thing at Her Own Reflection

14171417 views99 comments88 favs

We've come this far. That's all we know. We've watched others reach their abrupt ends. They've given us this exact moment and we've taken it from them, sometimes without thinking. It's time for the next communication. I know what concern is…

People Who Go to Poems for Truth

12691269 views1010 comments66 favs

People Who Go to Poems for Truth

Song of Unself

12001200 views1111 comments88 favs

nothing suffices as harbor / but a permit to claw at every yawing chasm

A Poet in a Coffeeshop in the Motherfucking Nineties

13861386 views1010 comments77 favs

Look at her. She doesn't want to be here. The kiss and “wouldn't miss it for the world” was as empty as her crossed arms, crossed legs, and jittery foot were loaded. She attacked the foam of her latte with a tiny red straw. I wanted to scream. Complain about the…

Ben Clarone: Prologue Part 1

12291229 views1111 comments88 favs

The gaunt broken man walked with short quick steps on the uneven path.

Slipstream

13861386 views1010 comments77 favs

Moments before they had been holding hands, but when they turned the corner and she told him she did not want to go down the dark path he had turned also, into someone she did not recognize and could not understand.

Marriage, California Style

13471347 views88 comments88 favs

Out the window we could see the parking lot and, across the street, the Bijou Moonlight Laundromat.

The Way Back Home

13451345 views99 comments77 favs

500 miles all the way from Omaha nine hours on the back of a flatbed truck

A Cameo (for no-one)

14251425 views77 comments55 favs

I bleed my heart into my computer, peruse The fact they have proclaimed my root unfit for use But it is I! This manhood, this tower Extending up toward the heavens like a miraculous flower, Purple headed warrior of generation, See it standing…

Leftover Author's Notes

420420 views1616 comments77 favs

#281: If you make it to the end on this one, I'll send you $1,000 in cash and a bag of apples. Your choices are Granny Smith and Fuji. I can also pay you in euros if that helps.

Strikhedonia!

433433 views66 comments44 favs

Amen, no more nothingness now, finally the hilarity of a band of abecedarians getting drunk on whiskey and beer. We've been in this place since 11 am, now its December in January On the toilet cubicle wall are words such as Sorry and …

Bride and Groom

13741374 views1616 comments77 favs

He wears an old black tux, shiny at the elbows, and his gray hair has been styled and sprayed into a fragile tornado. On his lap sits a Chihuahua wearing a bridal outfit—veil and all.

Laidlaw

11801180 views1010 comments77 favs

There were too many laws but not enough of the kinds she wanted. She wished for the right to go shopping. Then taste rather than disposable income or access to finance could distinguish people.

Love and Destruction In A '67 El Dorado

17371737 views1313 comments1111 favs

He had her pinned to the back seat, expressing his love. Do you love me? she whispered in his ear. Do you, do you, Jimmy Dale, do you love me? His only response…

Aquis Submersus

12061206 views1010 comments88 favs

In a dream, he’s covered in masticated bits of paint and canvas and metal shavings and it keeps raining down until he’s buried and he wakes up with a yell.

Where's Waldo?

11961196 views99 comments88 favs

Over his usual ham sandwich and skim milk for lunch Uncle Waldo used to always say, “Going out in the dead of night without a flashlight is dangerous.” But I knew what I was doing. After dark, I'd slip out and sneaker on down the path to take a dip in a…

The Match Maker and His Student

139139 views88 comments88 favs

Then there was the slide, some time during late winter

End Game

916916 views1414 comments77 favs

The will to make/ remains

Kitty Love

15631563 views1111 comments88 favs

Our next door neighbor is in love with his cat. His wife sits in our kitchen crying her eyes out.

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas

11521152 views55 comments55 favs

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas where over much crowd noise the three of us are discussing Yeats, Joyce and Lady Gregory. We’re in an Irish pub after all, plus the fact we’re literature profs attending a Vegas academic conference.

Bubbles

19951995 views1212 comments66 favs

It’s about 4:30 when the phone rings. I look at the display and see it’s home. “Hey,” I say picking up. “I hate you,” says Jules. “I hate, you, too,” I say. My co-workers don’t even blink. They’ve heard this before.

The Argument

15241524 views1010 comments88 favs

"What mouths could not say, hands did."